


The Baby

by LemuelCork



Category: Haven - Fandom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-24
Updated: 2010-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-14 01:49:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/144027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LemuelCork/pseuds/LemuelCork
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A quick bit of last-minute fic from a teeming brain on a frosty Xmas Eve...</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Baby

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Maekala](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maekala/gifts).



"What the hell were you thinking?" Audrey asked. She didn't lower her gun an inch until Duke shrugged and let the axe handle slip from his fingers to the floor. The clatter woke the baby.

Nathan's head swiveled and his expression said volumes about what he thought of someone who'd wake a baby by dropping an axe handle on a tile floor.

"That's not a baby," Duke said.

"What are you talking about," Nathan growled, keeping his voice low. With one index finger, he was tickling the baby's chin, lulling it back to sleep.

"If it's not," Audrey said, "it's the best disguise I've ever seen."

"I'm telling you--"

"I know some bank robbers who could've used a disguise like that, 'cause we'd never have caught them then. Some jailbirds, too. Hell, if Jonas Lester had had a disguise this good up his sleeve, maybe he wouldn't have wound up at the foot of Tuwiowar Cliff--"

"Tuwiowok," Nathan muttered.

"Audrey," Duke said, "you know I think relatively highly of you, which is already pretty unusual considering that badge you wear on your hip, but with all due respect, you don't know what you're dealing with here. It is _not_ a baby."

"All right, I'll bite," Audrey said. "What is it?"

"A vicious killer."

"A killer."

"Don't you see the tattoo?"

"The baby has a tattoo?" Audrey said.

"If you'll pull that blanket down, you'll see for yourself."

Nathan's glare had not grown any more accommodating, but the investigator in him wouldn't let him not look. He tugged the swaddling cloth away from the baby's neck, peeked inside. Covering most of the baby's back was a tattoo -- _the_ tattoo. A circular maze with four rudimentary human figures, one at each of the compass points.

He nodded to Audrey.

"How did you know?" she said, but then before Duke could answer she interrupted. "Wait, no -- that's not what matters. What matters is that you were about to attack this baby with an axe handle."

"It's not a baby."

"It's a tattooed baby, but it's a baby," Audrey said. Nathan, meanwhile, had picked the baby up and carried it out of the bedroom and into the kitchen, cooing at it as he went.

"Maybe it's a Troubled person," Duke said, "whose Trouble is that he ages backwards. Or that he shrinks."

"And his hair and teeth magically convert into a diaper and a onesie?"

"You're not taking this seriously," Duke said.

"No, I can't say that I am."

"Well, if you were the one who was told by a woman who could see the future that your future contains a killer with that tattoo, I think you you would be."

"I would be if that baby were big enough to lift a gun."

"Audrey--"

"Or a knife," Audrey said.

"I'm telling you--"

"Or an axe handle," Audrey said.

Nathan walked back into the room, a damp washcloth in his hand. "Came off," he said.

"What did?" Audrey said.

"The tattoo," Nathan said.

Duke folded his arms over his chest. He looked from one of them to the other.

"Don't look at me," Nathan said, "I just washed it off, I didn't draw it on."

"You think I like drawing things on babies?" Audrey said. "I don't even like holding babies. They're like cats, just less pleasant."

"So then who...?"

Nathan and Audrey looked at each other. "Ruderman?"

"Who's Ruderman?" Duke said -- but they were already out the door and halfway to Nathan's Bronco, which stood idling in the driveway. _"Who's Ruderman?"_

"Nothing better happen to that baby," Nathan called back as he climbed behind the wheel.

"No," Duke said. "No, no, no -- you are _not_ leaving me here with this--"

His words were drowned out by the sound of the tires peeling out.

[CUT TO OPENING CREDITS...]


End file.
